


Before Her Luck Runs Out

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Hurt, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble, loosely tied into <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/964977">A Slash of Blue</a>, between Acts 2 and 3 while Isabela roams far from Kirkwall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Her Luck Runs Out

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Slash of Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/964977) by [todisturbtheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse). 



She doesn’t look well.

He can see how desperately she’s tried to hide it. There’s kohl smudged black and thick around her eyes, looted gold draped around her neck and wrists and ears to distract from the bitter edge of her smile. She looks thinner than he remembers—Denerim, 9:30 Dragon—and it doesn’t suit her, for the sea never tries to make itself smaller.

A scrap of red fabric clings to her bicep, painstakingly clean where the rest of her is coated with dust, fresh like blood.

He seats himself quietly. They sip their drinks; he sorts out the voices in the tavern, drunk from angry, trouble from bored. 

 _I could tie them up for you_. His imagination builds the Warden out of nothing, idle sparks waking up around her dancing fingers. _  
_

Isabela exhales, sinking like sails that have lost their wind, as if she can hear that secret ghost. “Well?” she asks, not meeting his eye.

”She is safe,” Zevran replies. “Though perhaps not for long, if her habit of drinking alone on the Wounded Coast holds out.”

Isabela snorts, blinks. Her coppery eyes gleam wet, or perhaps that’s just a trick of the light. “She thinks she’s invincible,” she says, as if Hawke’s drinking habits offend her.

"Go back to Kirkwall, my dear," Zevran advises. "Before her luck runs out."

She finally catches his eye. “What do I care for her luck?” she replies, mouth set in a grim line.

He remembers the warmth of a cheek pressed to his shoulder, the cold of a hand lying limp in his grasp. He wonders if it’s her magic that has let her linger on, all these years later, or if every trace of her is just the pointless mumble of his lonely heart.

"There are dragons about," he reminds Isabela, getting to his feet. "They aren’t all archdemons."

He sees the color go out of her face, a flicker of accusation in her eyes, but in the next moment he’s turned away to deal with the Crows shouldering into his tavern. It will be a night’s work to deal with them, and by then, Isabela will be long gone—to another friendless port, perhaps, or back to the City of Chains; it doesn’t matter to him.

He only knows that it makes him sick to look at her, holding at arm’s length what he would give anything to have back.


End file.
